Don't Panic, Do Act: A Climate Resource With Real Solutions

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There has been much discussion in the press (and fierce debate online) about climate change gloom and doom in response to “The Uninhabitable Earth”
by David Wallace-Wells. The New York Magazine piece describes a planet
that becomes the enemy of the human race by the end of the 21st century.
Some very smart climate change reporters such as David Roberts at Vox think it is valuable to discuss and understand worst case outcomes, whereas others such as the scientist Michael Mann, writing for the Washington Post, worry that fear-mongering only turns people off when doomsday is described as inevitable.

Whatever
your take, how we communicate about climate change matters. But what we
do about it matters, too. Building on the current conversation, I want
to share my thoughts on another climate publication we should all be
talking about—one that approaches the issue from a very different angle.

New York Times bestselling book, "Drawdown"

“Drawdown,” edited by Paul Hawken and written with support from two
hundred climate analysts, provides a much more hopeful prognosis than
Wallace-Wells' piece, arguing that we can reverse climate change by
scaling up technologies and practices that are fully mature today. Mr.
Hawken’s book is paired with an extensive website, www.drawdown.org,
that describes 80 strategies for battling climate change (along with
another 20 that are on the horizon). Ranging from onshore wind energy to
“alternative cement,” these solutions—in combination with existing
strategies and pushed hard by governments, businesses and
individuals—could not only stop the growth in atmospheric concentrations
of greenhouse gases but also reduce them.

This work builds on the
reports of Princeton in the last decade that identified “wedges” that
would hold global warming pollution to safe levels. These include
strategies like energy efficiency to nuclear power to biofuels. Back
when the papers were published, eight one-billion-ton reduction wedges
would have done the job, and most were focused on the energy sector.

“Drawdown”
takes a much more granular approach than the Princeton papers and
invokes strategies that reach across a much broader range of human
activity, including land use, materials, cities and food. The strategies
the book proposes are also supported by a tremendous amount of research
on their efficacy, their costs and the net benefits that would accrue
if they are adopted.

As many experts have pointed out, renewable
energy sources are a big part of the solution put forth in “Drawdown.”
To reverse global warming, “Drawdown” concludes that all energy must
come from renewable sources by 2050. Ranked by their contribution,
onshore wind energy is #2 followed by utility-scale solar farms (#8),
rooftop solar (#10), geothermal energy (#18), offshore wind turbines
(#22) and concentrated solar power (#25).

But "Drawdown" also highlights the importance of some
less-talked-about solutions. Importantly, it takes into consideration
elements of society and diversity as crucial pieces of the puzzle.
Educating girls (#6) and family planning (#7), if achieved at scale,
would do more than any other single strategy. The two together would
reduce the projected global population by 1.1 billion people by 2050 and
reduce cumulative greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 120 billion tons.
(The U.S. emits about 6 billion tons of GHGs each year.)

“Drawdown”
also takes on the role of food production and use. Reduced food waste
(#3) and plant rich diets (#4) could, in combination, reduce emissions
by more than 130 billion tons. For a vegan like me, that's a highly
reinforcing message.

One other message from “Drawdown” that
resonated with me was the large number of strategies that are based on
building a better relationship with nature. Analyses by scientists at
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) indicate that natural solutions are an
essential part of solving the global warming problem. Our science shows
that up to one-third of the reductions stated in the goals of the Paris
Accord can be accomplished by sequestering carbon in forests, wetlands,
agriculture soils and marine habitats. Twenty-three of the 80 “Drawdown”
solutions are based in forests, agriculture or other land management
strategies including tropical forests (#5), forest pastures (#9),
regenerative agriculture (#11), temperate forests (#12), peatlands
(#13), afforestation (#15), conservation agriculture (#16) and managed
grazing (#19). This is work that TNC has been doing for years, and we
wholeheartedly support placing natural solutions at the top of the menu
for important climate protection strategies.

The message of “Drawdown” is far from gloom and doom—but there is
much work to be done to bring these solutions to scale and make real,
measurable change. In many cases, these solutions aren’t supported by
policies and markets that would be needed to implement them rapidly and
at scale. The gloom-and-doomers are right to suggest that we need to be
on a war-footing when it comes to global warming.

One example of a
solution where we have a long way to go is “refrigerant management.” It
ranks #1 among the 80 solutions. The air conditioners and refrigerators
we use today incorporate chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
to achieve the cooling they provide. These HFCs were originally adopted
in the 1990s to replace the CFCs that were depleting the stratospheric
ozone layer. While they are safe for ozone layer, HFCs are very potent
greenhouse gases—some, 9000 times more powerful, molecule-for-molecule,
than carbon dioxide.

The good news is that world governments
reached an agreement in 2016 to phase out the production and use of
HFCs. But the HFCs in air conditioners and refrigerators already in
homes today, if released to the atmosphere when that equipment wears
out, are potent enough to make capturing and destroying those HFC
emissions priority #1 on the “Drawdown” list. This will cost tens of
billions of dollars with the responsibility spread across the whole
consumer economy. There is no policy in place now to accomplish that
objective.

Another example is the transition from fossil fuels to
renewable sources in our energy systems. We have made dramatic progress
in reducing the costs of wind and solar energy. If you were building a
new power plant today, wind would be cost-competitive with natural gas,
and solar farms may be competitive in a few years. But that doesn’t mean
that we are ready to go out and tear down all of the fully-paid-for
fossil plants that are now standing and operating.

To make a more rapid transition to renewable energy, we should
establish a price on carbon emissions either through a tax or a cap and
trade program that will assure that the cost of energy produced from
those existing plants fully reflects the global warming impacts they
impose.

“Drawdown” encourages readers to find hope in a habitable
future planet, while at the same time spurring action. And most
importantly, it extends the discussion about solutions to many aspects
of our lives beyond energy—showing how each of us may become more
involved in protecting the planet. There is still much to be done in
policy and practice to scale these solutions to actions that can reverse
global warming. Let's get to work.